YOUR MAMAS NOTES: As we perused through the magnificent Malee-boo listings over the weekend day-dreaming of a house where we could be lulled to sleep at night listening to the roiling surf, Your Mama came across a high priced puppy on Point Dume designed by the legendary architect Cliff May, a man known as the big Kahuna of Kalifornia ranch style homes who championed and pioneered the classic California indoor/outdoor lifestyle. Being a born and raised Calee-for-ñun who grew up barefoot on the beach, Your Mama is a huge fan of Mister May's long and low sprawlers. But unfortunately, due to its dream killing $8,750,000 asking price, we can't touch this knockout of a property with a ten foot pole.

Therefore we pacified our thwarted real estate longing with a few pokes and prods around in the public property records, and lo and behold we found that the Cliff May designed Mediterranean on Malee-boo'sGrayfox Street is owned by another legend of a different stripe. According to all the 411 Your Mama dug up, this house is owned by legendary film producer Robert Chartoff and his wifey Vanessa. In case the children don't know or are too lazy to take to the interweb themselves, Mister Chartoff is the Academy Award winning man responsible for such big box office hits as The Right Stuff, Raging Bull, and of course, the Rocky franchise, which has inexplicably ballooned to include six money making feature films.

While Your Mama would bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly that Mister Sylvester Stallone is exceedingly grateful for Mister Chartoff's three decade plus commitment to making movies about that dumb ass boxer Rocky Balboa, we find Mister Stallone difficult to stomach as an actor and we have zee-ro interest in paying good money to sit through a movie that revolves around inarticulate grown men smacking each other around, even if they are muscled and nearly nood. But, as usual, we digress...

Information provided to Your Mama by a secret source we'll call the Malibu Minx indicates that Mister and Missus Chartoff purchased their Malee-boo mini-manse in February of 2002 for $2,500,000. A quick flick of the beads on our trusty and bejeweled abacus reveals that with it's current asking price of $8,750,000, Mister and Missus Chartoff are looking to multiply their money by 3.5 in just six or seven years. It remains to be seen whether the property will sell for any where near that asking price, but children, be honest, doesn't everyone wish they dumped a little cash into the Malee-boo market 8 or 10 years ago? We know we do.

Listing information and public records for the 1 acre property indicate that the main house was built in 1960, measures in at a modest 3,220 square feet and includes 3 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. Other features and amenities in the main house include a gated motor court, living and dining rooms, natch, 2 fireplaces, a wine cellar and an office. A central courtyard, into which many of the main rooms open, contains a heated trapezoidal swimming pool perfect for skinny dipping when the Pacific Ocean is too cold...which it is usually is.

Listing information also indicates that in addition to the bedrooms and and bathrooms in the main house, there are also detached maid's quarters with bath (isn't it really more modern to call it a staff suite?), a detached guest suite with bath plus a privately located one bedroom guest house at the rear of the estate that over looks the property's terraced and fruit tree planted hillside. A small ravine that runs down to the exclusive and often difficult to access sands of Point Dume although it's unclear to Your Mama is the Chartoff estate has any access to the pathway that runs along the bottom of the ravine to the beach. In the event that it does not, the Chartoff residence does include deeded beach access to the private Riviera 3 beach, a lovely and often expensive bonus.

Photos of the property are the seriously slim side which is a little strange when you consider that one of the listing agents appears to be one of Mister and Missus Chartoff's male children...someone we would imagine has unfettered photographic access to the property.

The Point Dume neighborhood with is winding streets and semi-rural vibe has always had it's fair share of super star home owners including long time Point Dumer Babs Streisand who owns at least three contiguous ocean front estates on Zumirez Drive. Other notable nearby neighbors to the Chartoff house on Grayfox Street include (but are by no means limited to) Kid Rock over on Bison Court, smoking hot Matthew McConaughey and his baby momma Camila Alves who shack up on Wildlife Road and, of course, everyone knows that toothy Oscar winning actress Julia Roberts recently completed a colossal cliff top Craftsman style "green" built house spread across two luscious lots at the tail end Grayfox Street.

In what may or may not be a coincidence, property records and listing information reveal that one of Mister Chartoff's female children has listed her house on the Howland Canal in Venice with an asking price of $3,150,000. Interestingly, it is not listed with the property pushing sibling mentioned above.

how do you sell a house like this and use those as your pictures??? from the first picture it's tough to judge anything about the exterior of the house, the portico picture is nice but non-descript, the third picture could have come from a totally different house as far as i can tell, and the fourth picture is black. how do you not show the view? or even the kitchen?

I think that there is something appealing about having the modest 3400 sq ft as your residence and having an additional, separate, guest house available. You can have company visit and not be stumbling over each other the whole time they are there. I don't know California well, but it seems many modest homes have detatched guest houses, some very small garage conversions with only a bedroom and bathroom. I don't think you see this very often in other parts of the country. Here in the tundra, we like to have our guests contribute to the heating of the main residence. Children of guests make remarkably efficient space heaters but it is difficult to get them to stay in one place and they tend to be messy.

I am also quite fond of Cliff May's work and agree that a separate guest house is ideal. Why have guests underfoot? We don't need the extra bodies for warmth here in CA.

I am professionally appalled by the listing photos of the property, however. Were these taken with a Polaroid? For shame. There is no excuse for not having decent MLS/marketing photos, especially in this price range and double especially if it's your parents' home.

Well, the Carson estate included two additional lots, one a caretakers cottage, the other across the street is a tennis court. I used this as a comparable, when valuing another Point Dume property for estate planning purposes. What the lack of pictures tells you, of course, the house doesn't have the new designer kitchen, or panoramic Queen's Necklace views. But that location! Which is pretty darn nice, walk to school, good bus service for the hired help, keys to private beach access. And close to my Thursday nite Jazz gig at Paradise Cove!

Oh, please don't let Ted Casablanca help you with these blog entries anymore! I love me some terlit's and long biches - but the Ted stuff goes aloooooooonnnnnng way, baby.

Ahem, back to this charming number, it's Malibu, it's over priced, but nice call on the possible sibling rivalry you sourced. It would appear that this is just a vacation home and is in desperate need of a Flipping Out by Jeff and Ryan. ;)

FYI-Robert Chartoff has been divorced from Vanessa for 20+ years. He has a new wife. This house does not belong to him, it is his ex wife's. 3400 sq ft. is hardly a mansion. nice house but not mansion. lame pictures, needs a new realtor. it is obvious why she got the listing.

That's no Cliff May home! Cliff May might have built it but some designer literally destroyed much of the Cliff May essence in a major remodel at some point. It's a nice house but I think Cliff May would rollover in his grave if he knew that house was attributed to him.

Really need more info on his "ex" wife Vanessa, as she was once an actress (Vanessa Howard) and starred in one of the greatest English fantasy horror films - Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly (AKA Girly) in 1969. The film sank without trace but is due for a long, long overdue release on DVD in March 2010.